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A contextualizing image (Cl) is a poweiful central image in a dream which can be seen as picturing, or providing a picture-context for, the dominant emotion of the dreamer. Thus the paradigmatic dream, HI was overwhelmed by a tidal wave," contextualizes the dominant emotion of fear/terror or helplessness. This study examined the question of whether CIs, scored on a blind basis, are especially frequent and intense in persons who have suffered abuse, and in persons who have suffered a recent acute trauma.Two sets of dream data were studied. A single "most recent dream" was obtained from each of 306 students. The contextualizing image (Cl) score measuring presence and intensity of a contextualizing image, scored on a blind basis, was higher among students who reported any abuse (physical or sexual, childhood or recent) compared to those who reported no abuse.Second, a total of 451 dreams were collected in periods after trauma from ten persons who had experienced a variety of different acute traumas. Infour of the ten cases, a series of dreams before as well as immediately after trauma were available. In allfourofthese, the CI score was higher after trauma than before, but the d(fference was statistically significant in only one case. The CI scores in the ten trauma subjects overall were found to be significantly higher than the CI scores in the overall student group. In each of the ten trauma cases, the mean CI score was higher than the mean CI score of the student group. The differences were even greater, with higher t values. when the 10 trauma cases were compared with the group of students who had reported no abuse. Since the student group differed greatly from the trauma group in sex distribution, age, and other ways, an age and gender matched subgroup of the students wasformed. CI scores in the trauma group were significantly higher than in this matched control group.The emotions rated as contextualized by the dream images tended towards more negative than positive emotions. Fear/terror and helplessness/vulnerability were especially prominent. However, this was true in the dreams of students who reported no abuse, as well as those of students who reported abuse and the dreams of the group who had experienced trauma. The students who reported abuse tended to picture less of the positive emotions. Only the two most severely traumatized of the trauma cases showed an unusual amount of

We tested the hypothesis (McNamara 1996; Zborowski and McNamara 1998) that dream recall and dream content would pattern with interpersonal attachment styles. In study I, college student volunteers were assessed on measures of attachment, dream recall, dream content and other psychologic measures. Results showed that participants who were classified as ‘high’ on an ‘insecure attachment’ scale were significantly more likely to (a) report a dream, (b) dream ‘frequently’, and (c) evidence more intense images that contextualize strong emotions in their dreams as compared with participants who scored low on the insecure attachment scale. In study II, 76 community dwelling elderly volunteers completed measures of attachment, and dream recall. Participants whose attachment style was classified as ‘preoccupied’ were significantly more likely to report a dream and to report dreams with higher mean number of words per dream as compared with participants classified as ‘securely’ attached or as ‘avoidant’ or as ‘dismissing.’ Dream recall was lowest for the avoidant subjects and highest for the preoccupied subjects. These data support the view that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and/or dreaming function, in part, to promote attachment.

In this article the authors propose, on the basis of a review of the evolutionary and neuropsychological study of REM sleep, that REM sleep functions to promote attachment and that in the mature state it may promote sexual pair bonding and serve related compensatory functions. The attachment hypothesis is consistent with known psychobiologic correlates of REM sleep, with classical psychoanalytic theory regarding dreams, and with evidence from research on attachment. The authors argue that this hypothesis leads to a new understanding of the role of repression and the dream work, and has broad implications for psychopathology research. They argue that although many in the cognitive and neural sciences have largely dismissed S. Freud's (1900/1953) theorizing on dreams, there is important complementarity when it is evaluated through the lens of the attachment hypothesis.

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